"Your job?" the professor said. "Your job's gone, my boy. Wait. Let me tell you what I've discovered. Let me tell you what has happened—happened to you, my boy. To you, and to me."
Charley sat upright, slowly. "Well," he said, "all right, professor."
Professor Lightning beamed, and his eyes glittered brighter and brighter. "Limb regeneration," he said, and his voice was as soft and quiet as if he'd been talking about the most beautiful woman in the world. "Limb regeneration."
Charley waited a long minute before he admitted to himself that he didn't have the faintest idea what the professor was talking about. "What?" he said at last.
Professor Lightning shook his head slightly. "Charley," he said softly, "you're an Armless Wonder. That's right, isn't it?"
"Sure it is, professor," Charley said. "You know that. I was born that way. Made a pretty good thing out of it, too."
"Well," Professor Lightning said, "you don't have to be one. Can you realize that?"
Charley nodded slowly. "Sure I don't," he said. "Only it's pretty good money, you know? And there's no sense in sitting around back home and feeling sorry for myself, is there? I mean, this way I can make money and have a job and—"
"No," Professor Lightning said emphatically.